AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I would give anything for this thing between us to have a future, but the only one I can give her is filled with promises I’ll eventually have to break. How am I supposed to promise to protect her and support her when I could end up in a wheelchair? How am I supposed to be there forherin sickness and in health if I’m the one who always needs to be cared for?
No. The best thing I can do for her, the best way I can love her, is to give her a chance to be with someone whocangive her those things.
“You should be with someone who can give you everything you want, someone who can give you the kind of life you deserve.”
“And who says you aren’t that man?”
I scoff and spin around to look at her again. “I think we’ve gone over that, in detail.”
“Do you evenknowwhat I want?” she asks, and her question gives me pause. “Do you know what kind of life I want? The future I picture for myself and my daughter?”
I watch her as she walks over to the bookshelf in the corner, where I have all the pictures of my family. I know them all so well. Each moment. Each memory. There’s one from the Cohen family reunion a few years ago when my Uncle Paul arranged for all of us to go on a harbor cruise in San Francisco and my cousin Ruben jumped into the water. There are a couple from high school—me with Nick, me with Rusty and a few other guys from the swim team, me at graduation with my parents. Several with me and Leo and Nina. And my favorite, a photo of me and my dad, fishing off the dock at the marina.
Busy reaches out and pulls the one she gave to me from our hike off the shelf then holds it up for me.
“This. This is what I want.” She looks at the picture again, one finger stroking gently across the glass. “I have spent years of my life feeling like an outsider, like I don’t belong…anywhere. But when I’m with you, I feel like I finally fit. That’s what I want.”
Her eyes flick to mine, still watery but sure.
“I want to belong, and I want to belong toyou.” She smiles as a single tear tracks down her cheek. “It’s really as silly and uncomplicated as that.”
Busy turns then and sets the picture back on the shelf, wiping at her face before looking at me again.
“You think what will happen to you someday should be enough to keep me from loving you now, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” she tells me, shaking her head. “The downside to forever is the grief that comes when you lose the person you love, but that pain is the price you pay for the life you’re lucky enough to share until that day comes.”
My chest grows tight as I listen to her, emotion pouring from her every word.
“Do you think your mom wouldn’t have married your dad if she knew she’d lose him?” she continues. “Or do you think she would still have loved him with every breath, knowing what was to come?”
I swallow thickly, knowing the truth even though I don’t say it aloud. That she would choose my father over and over, regardless of what the future held.
I want to tell Busy that it’s not the same. That what my future holds is a completely different situation.
But is it?
“In the end, I’m just looking for someone who can hold my hand when things are hard,” she continues. “Can you do that?”
I don’t respond, because I know she doesn’t need me to. She already knows the answer.
“Because everything else is just circumstance.”
We stand there for a long moment, just staring at each other. I don’t know what to say to her, how to process all the things she’s said.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” I finally say, feeling like I’ve lost my balance.
I’ve spent the past several years convincing myself that being alone is my best choice, and in one conversation, Busy has come in and taken a sledgehammer to nearly every argument I’ve had in my pocket.
She surprises me when she steps forward and slips her hand in mine.
“Let’s go…jump in the water.”
My brow furrows and I look back toward the window, where I can very clearly still see rain.
“It’s raining.”
She shrugs, laughing quietly even through her tears. “Sounds fun to me.”
I almost want to laugh at the idea of leaving behind this very serious conversation and running out into the storm. But then again, maybe that’s the point.
